Corona | Coming Attractions

I'm not sure that Ebert is the intended audience for this one. I can't wait to see it this weekend.

I'm not expecting to like it, but I will try.

I am mildly interested in this. Probably end up catching it on NetFlix or something when it comes out on DVD.

I read the comics. They were okay, I suppose.

It may or may not be as good as they say. However, it is still really not right to use kid actors that way...

It's a comic book movie, which means it's boring and has crap action sequences.

Saw it. The cartooniness is amped up in the trailers--at least as concerns the first three quarters of the movie. By the last quarter, it's probably even cartoonier than indicated by the trailers.

It makes an early half-promise to try to explore what might happen if people tried to be superheroes in the "real world," then breaks that promise pretty quickly. The main character's voice over narration is unnecessary much of the time. We get the points the kid is making about how he is just an everyday Joe, and about how "you'd think so-and-so," but the narration continues to repeat these points.

There were some changes made to the plot line that I thought worked better the way they were done originally, and there were changes made that made sense, and worked just fine. I'm not a huge fan of the comic book, though, so I was more or less fine with the changes. Some of what the comics does is ballsier (don't want to go into details for fear of spoiling folks); on some level, then, I guess I lament that the movie didn't keep things as was. (It seemed weird to me that a movie that so obviously gluts in hard R violence would be less ballsy in certain regards.)

When I read the first three issues of Kick-Ass back-to-back, I got the distinct impression that Millar must have first conceived of the series by sitting around and playing an all-nighter game of "Wouldn't it be so cool if . . . ?" The movie retains that feeling. Much of the time, I want to answer back, "No."

What Ebert says about Hit Girl practically becoming a superhero--and about how that undermines a lot of what the movie seems to be trying to do (does he say this, or imply this? I don't really feel like going back and looking)--is pretty on-the-mark. While a girl her size could conceivably cut off a leg with a hard slash and a very sharp sword, her punches and kicks would not have the thrust or impact they have in the movie. Physics wouldn't allow it. (Because physics is what's really important in movies like these.)

I like the actress behind Hit Girl. I think she's going places. That said, the character annoys me a bit. She's the spiritual cousin to the Extreme Grandparent (you see, grandparents aren't normally extreme, so when you see them being extreme, you ask yourself "Whudduhfuck!?"), and I hate the Extreme Grandparent.

What critics have said in the past about Sean of the Dead and Hot Fuzz becoming the things they are parodying in the last act holds true for Kick-Ass. The difference is that they become what they are parodying with a little more style (says I), and in a way that suits them. They do it as movies whose creators were obviously in love with the genre they were parodying in the first place. (It's mockery, but it's loving mockery.) They never show contempt for the genre they are parodying, and they never give one the impression that they are better than said genre.

I'm not going to take the leap and say that Kick-Ass shows contempt for the genre it is parodying. Comics are name-dropped on a frequent basis, and a number of the characters in the movie are comic lovers. And then there's the matter of the movie, itself, being an adaptation of a comic. (Of course, a comic's being a comic shouldn't preclude it from being contemptuous of comics. I'm a human, and I'm contemptuous of humanity.)

After having seen the movie, I'm still uncertain of how its makers feel about the genre they're parodying. I'm not even sure that it's a parody. It looks like a comic book movie. It feels like a comic book movie. Where's the parody? (Or satire, subversion, pastiche, or whatever other word you want to use to try to communicate that it is somehow separate from any other comic book movie.) What exactly is the point Vaughn and Co. are trying to make? Are they trying to tell us we're desensitized to violence in movies (*yawn*), or did they just set out to make an extremely violent movie? Either's fine by me. I like excessive movie violence just as much as I like having it pointed out to me that liking movie violence is a little fucked up. But which point do the makers of Kick-Ass want me to come away with? I'm not sure they're certain. This uncertainty, if it had been played right, could have been a strength. Many of the people who watch the movie are likely to say it *is* one of its strengths. For me--this specific time and with this specific movie--it was not. (I doubt I could justify my stance in this case, so I'm not going to bother to try. If you think I am wrong to feel the way I feel--and I very well may be--feel free to tell me how and why I am wrong.)

Does it even matter whether or not the movie is trying to make any clear point? No. I got the feeling on occasion that it wanted to, which makes me wonder if it feels it succeeded in making this point clear. If it did want to make a specific point, then I regret that I couldn't take that specific point away from it. If it didn't, then I'm left asking myself why I let myself come under the impression that it wanted to make one. It's my personal belief that a movie doesn't need a point, but if it has one in mind, it seems a shame to think people might not be getting the point. (What's that? Oh, you're absolutely right. Not getting the point is practically a specialty of moviegoers. So what's *my* point? I got no fuckin' clue, Man.) I suppose the thing is this: I got the distinct impression that Kick-Ass was pleased with itself, and I am prone to assuming (uh oh!) that things pleased with themselves are pleased with themselves because they managed to do what they set out to do.

Maybe Kick-Ass just set out to kick ass, and maybe it thinks it succeeded. If that's the case, then good for Kick-Ass.

* * *

I don't think it was too violent. Not for me, anyway. Parents may disagree.

Despite how it may look above, I didn't hate it. I was half-expecting to. At the same time, I also can't quite say I liked it.

I wouldn't be surprised if it became the new favorite movie of a number of teenagers. (I remember getting the same feeling while watching Fight Club, American Psycho, and The Matrix. This one has less of the pop philosophizing than the others, but it still has it in its own roundabout way.) It's no secret that lots of people love watching other people beat the shit out of one another. This is especially true when it comes to violent movies, where the certainty of fighting's scriptedness makes it safe enough for a person to enjoy without being overburdened with guilt for enjoying it. This movie shows people beating the shit out of each other. It has over-the-top slaughter, too, and people love that. People also appear to love smug self-awareness. Does this movie have that? It sure does. According to me, that is.

All sorts of people love all sorts of things, I suppose. If you end up not loving Kick-Ass, don't worry. I suspect it loves itself enough, already.

I made edits. I bet I still need to make a bunch more. Since that would require me to reread what I've already written, though, I don't think I will be making any new edits for at least a day or two.

Kick-Ass seems to be a contradiction. One one hand, it suggests we should get off of our collective asses and take a personal stance against crime, while pointing out that doing so is pretty stupid. It shows us a that a little girl eviscerating bad guys and putting bullets in their heads is really awesome, but someone beating the crap out of her is evil incarnate. Big Daddy's relationship with Hit Girl is at the same time very loving, and very, very messed up. It's like the movie tries to live in a hyper-real comic book world and the real world at the same time.

It's like it doesn't quite know or doesn't care what it wants to say. Maybe it wants to be a contradiction. I'm sure there's more, but I am aiming for more brevity than Goiter.

Despite the above, I had a good time with Kick-Ass. All of the performances were great, and I loved how Cage channeled Adam West.

I don't know if those two messages are mutually exclusive - Kick-Ass could be making both points at the same time. Maybe we should do more as a society to prevent crime, but it's useless to fantasize about being superheroes because that's just not a feasible way of fighting crime. There are alternative ways of getting positively involved in your community.

Despite the fact that I was nearly asleep when I wrote most of that, and despite the fact that I was actually falling asleep while making the revisions, I'm guessing it's more coherent than a Harry Knowles review.

I'd know if I read it, but that would require reading.

I think I've come to the conclusion that Kick-Ass, while it may have some secondary points it wishes to make, is primarily concerned with being bad ass. For me, things that try to be bad ass almost never come across as being bad ass. This movie had a sense of humor, which helped. It only helped so much, though.

The Swollen Goi... wrote:

The More You Know

The Swollen Goi... wrote:

I think I've come to the conclusion that Kick-Ass, while it may have some secondary points it wishes to make, is primarily concerned with being bad ass. For me, things that try to be bad ass almost never come across as being bad ass.

Inference of guilt by unconfirmed associations. If it doesn't come across as "bad ass," then why would it trip your reflex reactions against bad-assness? If things trying to be bad-ass almost never come across that way, I feel you may be unfairly stigmatizing whole swaths of pop culture creations based on vague assumptions of something which you may only be peripherally aware of. You appear to only suspect this "bad-ass" movement exists, because you claim to have trouble identifying it.

What can I tell you, Jack? You're right. When you're right, you're right, and you're right.

That's Chinatown.

You're right, and when you're right, you're right--and you, you're always right.

That's Spaceballs.

That's 'Spaceballs'.

Fixed.

I was just about to joke that we posted virtually the same thing only 5 seconds apart, but nobody would know once you were unable to resist editing your post, but it would've just been a joke, since, really, what is there to edit? Then you edited it anyway.

Snakes bite. Bears hibernate. Dogs bark. (There are exceptions to all three of these, I'm sure.)

I edit.

If "You Know You're Right" is an indicator of the direction that Nirvana was going to take following In Utero it's probably best that things happened the way they did.

Jack S. Pharaoh wrote:

I was just about to joke that we posted virtually the same thing only 5 seconds apart, but nobody would know once you were unable to resist editing your post, but it would've just been a joke, since, really, what is there to edit? Then you edited it anyway.

Funny thing is, I had decided to try to go back to sleep. I was just about to turn out the light when I thought, Wait. Did I make Spaceballs one word or two? I think it's only supposed to be one. Before I even checked to see whether it was supposed to be one word or two, I went here to see what I had actually put down. Then I saw you had already caught it.

Mal Shot First wrote:

If "You Know You're Right" is an indicator of the direction that Nirvana was going to take following In Utero it's probably best that things happened the way they did.

I like the intro. The rest of it sounds a lot like what a lot of the copycat bands would eventually sound like. There's a chance it would have been heavily reworked. The version we get is the version we get. I don't think it's so bad.

I remember wondering if maybe it was more representative of Nirvana's typical sound than I realized, and if it might have been the case that, had I been introduced to Nirvana later in life, I might not have enjoyed the band so much. Since then, though, I have heard other songs of theirs I had never heard as a teen. Some of these I really like.

It's probably dumb to wonder whether or not I would feel this or that way about a band's music if I had been introduced to it at any certain age. It's not something I'll ever be able to test.